Another (Very) Short Story

Below the dull light of the sun the graves shine, abundant with hopeful pink and yellow flowers and oh, that atmosphere – haunted by the ghostly smiles of memories. Through the shadows of night they shiver, mute headstones, row upon row of forgotten names amongst the swirling cloak of the clouds. As children, my sister and I would tread lightly over the various ornaments and gifts that would never be acknowledged by the deceased. We'd stand with tiny hands clasped tightly before the children's graves, the ones who'd passed too soon. Thirteen years accumulated between us altogether, barely a fleeting smudge of ink across the dog-eared paper of time, but we'd already far outlived those who'd never been given a chance to stay. My fingers would trace the cracked, forgotten names with a reverence I didn't understand, tiny digits curled within the half-moons weathered by time, a deeply unsettled feeling clattering against my ribs before it settled as a bitter taste in the back of my mouth, my feet scuffing upon the ruined marble. Death didn't seem so meaningful in those days. Confronted by it every day in the form of names and dates formed a solid stone layer around my heart. They simply made my brain ache with the desire to know more. How did this name die; what did they look like; who was it that they loved when they still had the capability of life to feel? Everybody dies, and this is the only thing we know for sure. In the night, equipped with torch and bright pink slippers, I would shuffle to the graves that I could see from my bedroom window. Yes, there was something beautiful about them in the saddest way throughout the day, but hidden the way they were in the dark, caressed occasionally by a swaying branch and the whisper of crumbling leaves, there was nothing but loneliness there. Forgotten names, forgotten dates, forgotten lives. So I learned them, examined the gifts left there, and cried for the ones who received no gifts at all, chipping away at my stone heart. We are kept alive by memories, but when there is no-one left to remember us, then did we ever really exist at all? What about those I haven’t learned, those who I’ve forgotten as time continues incessantly on? How many of them ceased to exist now? Later, I would write about death, about how meaningless it truly is, about how we try to give it meaning in vain. I would write about the weary words on dull marble that made the nightmares a reality. I would write about how words are the only powerful devices that make things real at all. I would write about how as we decay in death we become the soil, the plants, and ultimately we become life, as how could there ever be death, if life ever relinquished its hold altogether? No matter how many times I visit; no matter how many names I read; dates I learn; flowers I water – I still recall the time my sister tripped and her knee bloomed red. Through it all she just laughed at the pain and smacked a sloppy, childish kiss upon my cheek when my lanky arms tried to encase her in a hug. And all of it, the pain, the death, the uncertainty: It was forgotten amongst the childish innocence of her wind charm laughter. Someday, our names will be on those graves too.